“What do you want Me to do for you?”
It’s a question Jesus asked more than once while His feet walked the streets of this broken world. And it is a question I have thought about often. I contemplate what I would reply to this question if Jesus asked me. I ask it in the depths of my heart and ask God to purify my desires, to bring clarity to dreams in my heart. And I write about some of those thoughts on the blog from time to time.
In Mark 10:36 James and John are asked by Jesus, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Their request was to sit on each side of Jesus in glory. And their request was not granted because in Jesus’ words, they did not know what they were asking.
I am so grateful I can trust that God knows absolutely best what I need. the Bible says He withholds no good thing from me.
In Mark 10:51 Bartimaeus was asked by Jesus, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He boldly says, “I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus gave Him what He asked for, and Bartimaeus immediately followed Jesus.
I am so grateful God is willing and able to give me what He knows I want.
So while I think it’s a perfectly fine question to ponder—“What do you want Me to do for you?”—I also think I have found my answer in this season and it is not what naturally came to mind along this journey. I was considering some “big” things…daring to believe that maybe God has something “big” for me. Something tangible maybe or an assignment that would give me some focus, you know, one where I can make a list and check it off as I go and be sure I was doing what He wanted me to do and achieving some sort of earthly success or purpose…all for God, mind you. A-hem.
Last night I heard a little chorus that I had not heard before:
Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain, that I can’t control.
I want more of you God.
I want more of you God.
There it was. My answer to the question, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
I want more of you God.
I also thought of Luke 5. The Lord bookmarked this story in my heart a few mornings back from my time in The Word. I kept thinking of the word “MORE” over and over again. I didn’t draw any straight lines or make any connections that morning or the next couple of days, but it was definitely rolling around in my head and heart. I was keeping alert and asking God to show me what He was wanting me to get from the story of Simon and his fellow fishermen.
See, Simon and his team had finished up fishing all night and were cleaning their nets, packing everything up when Jesus asked Simon to push out the boat in the water for Him and then to let down their nets.
“Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.”
“When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to sink.”
Wow. That must have been quite a load of fish! More fish than they had ever caught.
Here’s where you may think the fishermen decide to go back out and try again to get even more fish.
But they didn’t.
And they didn’t say, “Let’s write a book on how to catch fish because, obviously, we’re pretty good at this.”
And they didn’t say, “Let’s lead a seminar on how to catch fish. People will love to hear from us because, obviously, we’re pretty good at this.”
Verse 11 of Luke 10 says, “They left everything and followed Him.”
Essentially, they were also saying, WE WANT MORE OF YOU GOD. They didn’t want more success. They didn’t want more time to do what could be profitable to their earthly business. They left everything familiar, tangible and profitable to follow Jesus.
They didn’t follow Him perfectly, and neither do I and neither do you. But do I recognize that anything good in my life, any success I may have, any peace in my heart, any purpose worth pursuing is ALL FROM HIM? I don’t have anything it takes. I am unqualified. But JESUS is able, has everything it takes to work in me and through me. He is qualified to do the work. Do I want more of Him? Or more of what the world calls success and what the world sees as profitable? God’s Kingdom is upside down in comparison to what our eyes see here on this earth. So, today I am telling God I want more of Him. I want to let down my nets into the deep waters of His Word and His Presence and be changed to be more like Him in a broken world that desperately needs to hear the Good News of Jesus.
How about you? What do you want?